The Commissaire Adamsberg series is a series of crime thriller and mystery novels written by the well known French author named Fred Vargas. This intriguing series is comprised of a total of 7 books, which were released between the years 2003 and 2013. All the books of the crime thriller series feature the chief protagonist in the form of Chief Inspector or Commissaire Jean Baptiste Adamsberg. He is introduced into the series as a police chief, who is particularly based in Paris, France. But, he takes up a lot of traveling around the nearby cities and countries as a part of his job of solving the crimes. The crime fiction series also features Adrien Daanglard, who is described by author Vargas as the deputy of Commissaire Adamsberg. Adrien Danglard is shown to be adopting more of a methodical approach in solving the mysteries, opposite to that of Adamsberg. He likes to use the Zen methods, in particular. Adrein Danglard is also shown as being in deep love with the white wine, that he does not stay away from him anytime. Another recurring character in the crime series is Camilie Forestier. She is introduced by author Vargas as a plumber and musician and seems to have an on and off relationship with Commissaire Adamsberg throughout the series. Initially, author Fred Vargas had written the novels of the series in the French language.

After they became extremely popular all over France, they were translated into English and then released worldwide. All the books gained even more popularity in the English speaking countries of the world as they received in France. This helped the series to become extremely successful all across the world and allowed author Vargas to establish herself as one of the noteworthy novelists of the crime fiction genre. Author Vargas began writing the series in the year 1991. She also released the first French novel of the series in the same year. It was titled as L’Homme aux cercles bleus. This book was released again in the English language in the year 2009 and its titled was changed to ‘The Chalk Circle Man’. The English translated book went on to win the Internationl Dagger Award. One more book English book from the series, Wash This Blood from My Hand, won the prestigious award which was given by the CWA. Author Vargas has said the series is still going on even though she has not released a new book in the series in a long time. Currently, she is working on the plot of the latest story in the series, which she will be completing and publishing any time soon.

Author Vargas has described Commissaire Adamsberg as a Police Nationale of the 5th arrondissement of municipal Paris. Adrien Danglard also serves in municipal Paris as a police inspector and is depicted as being the father of 5 children. Adamsberg is shown as living a single life, but in some parts of the series, he is depicted as having a relationship with Camilie Forestier. Adamsberg has a large hooked nose, hollow cheeks, dark hair, swarthy complexion, and brown eyes. With his unique working technique, he tends to ignore the obvious suspects and clues and often suspects the ones who have strong alibis. In spite being a dreamer and facing frequent distractions, Adamsberg has an excellent success rate, which amazes even his colleagues. Adamsberg seems to have a deep understanding about the nature of the humans. This allows him to make accurate predictions about the moves of the suspects. Throughout the novel series, Commissaire Adamsberg has been depicted as working on a number of important and unique cases, which he becomes successful to solve with the help of his smartness and intelligence.

An initial book published in the Commissaire Adamsberg series by Fred Vargas is titled as ‘Seeking Whim He May Devour’. This book was first released in the year 1999 in French and then again in the year 2006 in English by the Vintage publication. The story depicted in this book by author Vargas shows a surprising and frightening account in which, the wayward and eccentric genius of Adamsberg is shown getting pitted against the mysteries of the history of an Alpine village. Adamsberg is also shown dealing with the villages’s present problem with wolves. The villagers report a number of disturbing incidents that happen in the mountains of France. Numerous sheeps are discovered with their throats cut out. Commissaire Adamsberg comes across several important evidences that point towards a wolf of unnatural strength and size. One of the residents of the village named Suzanne Rosselin thinks that it might have been done by a werewolf. The next, she is also found dead in the same manner as the sheeps. Camilie Forestier is the friend of Suzanne, who, along with the son of Suzanne named Soliman and her shepherd named Watchee, tries to find out what or who is behind all the murders. Soon, she calls in Commissaire Adamsberg to help find the killer and stop the unnatural killings as soon as possible.

Another initial book written by author Vargas in the series is titled as ‘The Ghost Riders of Ordebec’. This book was the number one bestseller in France and Italy. It was published in the year 2011 by the Penguin Books. In the opening scene of the book, it is shown that Commissaire Adamsberg does not have any jurisdiction in Ordebec as he stationed as the police chief in Paris. In spite of this, he decides to visit Ordebec as he is unable to ignore the plea of a widow. The widow tells Adamsberg that her daughter, named Lina, has seen a Ghost Riders’ vision involving 4 nefarious men. According to a popular and thousand year old legend in Ordebec, the vision hints that the 4 men will be encountering a grisly death very soon. Shortly after, one among the men disappears. This force Adamsberg to take the matter more seriously and the first thing that he does is reach Ordebec. Along with the job of solving the deep mystery of the vision of Ghost Riders, he gets involved with the beautiful Lina as well as gets embroiled in the ancient feud of a small town in Normandy. This book became extremely successful all over the globe and allowed author Vargas to become a bestselling author. She not only praised by the numerous critics, but was also appreciated by the readers throughout the world. The success also enabled Vargas to continue writing the series and publish intriguing crime thriller novels.

Jack Reacher is back! Personally I thought this was the 2nd best Reacher book yet. The latest book in the Jack Reacher series, Past Tense, came out November 5th. Family secrets come back to haunt Reacher when he decides to visit the town his father was born in. Why? Because when he visits there he finds out no-one with the last name of Reacher has ever lived there. It leaves him wondering - did his father ever live there? More Details.

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Featured Series

One of my favourite series is the Brilliance Saga by Marcus Sakey and it is our featured series of the month. It's just an incredible light sci-fi series that fans of "Dark Matter" would also enjoy. It's free on Kindle Unlimited too! More Details.

Featured Author

Our author of the month is Canadian author Opal Carew who writes erotic romance novels. Opal has written over 100 novels with multiple book series such as the Dirty Talk series and the Abducted series. If you’re a fan of erotic romance, be sure to check out Opal Carew.

Did You Know…

When not writing, Brad Taylor serves as a security consultant on asymmetric threats for various agencies.